The instant invention is directed generally to bale wagons, and specifically to hardware for assuring that at least one side of the stack being formed is uniform.
Over the past years, the three-table bale wagon, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,848,127 to G. E. Grey, has become by far the most successful commercial apparatus of its kind. From a study of the Grey patent referred to above, one will appreciate that the bale wagon shown therein includes three tandemly arranged tables, each pivotally mounted about a transverse axis relative to the longitudinal centerline of the wagon. Bales of hay are picked up from the field and conveyed onto a first receiving table which pivots upwardly about its transverse axis to deposit the bales on a rearwardly disposed transfer table. The receiving table continues to receive bales and deposit the bales received on the transfer table until a tier of bales has been accumulated thereon. Once a full tier of bales has been accumulated on the transfer table, the transfer table is pivoted upwardly about its transverse axis, causing the tier of bales to be deposited on a rearwardly disposed load bed. The transfer table continues to function as a bale-accumulator, and continues to deposit the tiers formed thereon in succession on said load bed until a stack of bales is formed thereon, the stack being comprised of a series of side-by-side tiers.
Once the stack has been formed on the load bed, the bale wagon can then deposit the entire stack on the ground or on some other storage surface by pivoting the load bed about the transverse axis.
Another type of bale wagon demonstrated to successfully and efficiently form stacks of bales is disclosed, for example, in co-pending U.S. Pat. application Ser. No. 891,890, entitled "Bale Wagon" filed concurrently herewith in the name of the same inventor as the instant application and assigned to the same assignee which application is hereby expressly incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. This bale wagon, though somewhat similar to the above-described Grey-type bale wagon, has a bale-receiving area which is stationary and at substantially the same height as the second table. Instead of a pivoting first table the bales are pushed across the bale-receiving area onto the second table area by a horizontal pusher mechanism. The second and third tables then function substantially as described in the Grey patent, and generally known in the art.
The overall objective of a bale wagon is to form a uniform stack which is stable and permits the bales to weather in a proper manner. To a significant degree, the overall performance of a bale wagon and specifically the quality of a stack and its ability to stand over long periods of time and to be retrieved readily depends on the stack being of uniform shape and having relatively constant dimensions. In this regard, numerous efforts have been made to insure that the stacks have fairly even sides. Apparatus such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,724,684 have been used on the three-table Grey-type bale wagon, and could also be used on the other above-identified type bale wagon, to move the bales on the second table to predetermined edge positions.
The solutions to the stack formation problems heretofore known have proved satisfactory; however, successful commercialization of a complex product requires that cost reduction and mechanism simplification be sought wherever possible. The invention to be described below has utility in bale wagons in general and particularly in the two types of bale wagons described above.